At the time, I bet my chips on two series, Front Mission and Parasite Eve. I was put on trial for it and was judged by my supposed lack of video game industry history knowledge. To have my five sleepless nights, two degrees in JRPGs and 25 years as a nerd player condemned as gibberish from a foolish writer was a critical hit. See an excerpt of the assaults before my thorough analysis: Now I am going to raise the stakes. Because while the following information doesn’t provide absolute confirmation, it at least provide further evidence in favor of my hypotheses.
Square Enix Renewed Front Mission Trademark
Square Enix is registering a new trademark for Front Mission in various regions of the world. The Japanese trademark registration, which appeared publicly on the Chizai Watch database on April 6, 2021, indicated that the company filed the trademark on March 19, 2021. If you put the Chinese content into Google Translate, it translates to “Murillo, you were right all along.” Gematsu noted on Twitter that Square Enix also registered the same trademark in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia in March 2021. While the European and Australian trademarks were classified only in category 28 - which comprised toy-scale models and physical games (who doesn’t want mini-wanzers on the shelf?), the Japanese and US registrations added category 41 - and remember that category - which also includes video game-related provisions.
Front Mission Series
Front Mission is an SRPG, a strategy game with a generally political plot, involving giant mechs called Wanzers and a lot of destruction of their parts and attachments. It was first released in 1995 for the Super Famicom but has grown to have 15 releases in all. The last release in the main series was Front Mission 5: Scars of War, released in 2005 for PlayStation 2. And the last release of the overall series was Front Mission Evolved in 2010, but it broke away from the SRPG style and featured 3D action gameplay with the Wanzers. If you search, you’ll find that the most recent release in the series was in 2019, with Left Alive, a spinoff that takes place in the same Front Mission universe. But we don’t talk about that spinoff here and recommend that you don’t research it either. Think of it as Metal Gear Survive.
Hopefully Awaiting for New Announcements
Let’s continue to look forward to Forever Entertainment’s next announcement. Even if it’s not Front Mission, I won’t be discouraged. Square Enix Japan has so many good games in their catalog that I will welcome any remake with open arms and a console. FE is also not shy of remaking/remastering more “obscure” games. Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana, SaGa Frontier, for example, several old games are being rescued for current generations. While many players dislike this recycling, I wouldn’t complain if Square decided to revitalize their entire catalog. I had a lot of fun playing their games back then and I believe that nowadays everyone should have this opportunity.
